August
5, 2016
In
a spasmodic fit of progressive jubilance Barak Obama declared in 2008 that he
wanted to fundamentally change America. But despite the ignorant paroxysm,
“fundamental change” had been taking place for a great many years. President
John F. Kennedy was assassinated November 22, 1963. Following that a book was
written bragging about Italian organized crime’s part in his murder. This
created no great stir, our subjugation to a foreign powers violence had been
accepted; the government of a great nation, given life at times by the courage
of those who had nourished liberty with their very blood, would not, in any
way, draw nigh to that noble example. They declined to so much as acknowledge
terror, much less attack it.
September 11, 2001 America was attacked by Islamist terrorists (political
Islam) following their age-old tradition of religious violence. Subsequently
they contrived to follow their history of erecting monuments of victory at
sites of conquest, in this instance “Cordoba House,” a mosque/community center
very near what has been called “ground zero.” But their intention was exposed
in the name as well as the location. “‘Cordoba House,’” Newt Gingrich pointed
out, “is a deliberately insulting term. It refers to Cordoba, Spain – the
capital of Muslim conquerors…every Islamist in the world recognizes Cordoba as
a symbol of Islamic conquest.” [1] In response progressives, as is their way,
raised their rumps in surrender and, except for a few brave souls like Gingrich
(a Republican), offered up their devout submission to another foreign power.
One might think that
deceptive sleight would have elicited a just indignation, that that
glorification of murderous “success” would have been met, in both instances,
with a stout American resolve not to submit. But, alas, it was not to be,
something had indeed changed. Hence our radicalized, subjectivist President
who, by his own admission, would continue apace the subversion of our
republic’s foundations, refuses to describe radical Islamism as such; he
insists reality is not so. He is in denial, in the last few weeks between
Orlando, Istanbul, Dhaka, Baghdad, and now Nice, 398 souls have been lost to
Islamic terrorism. “Oh, and some Israeli settlers were killed, too. But they’re
not quite in the same category, right?” [2] But, for now, he is the
president, so to enforce his preferred version of “reality” on the rest of us,
cozied away in the White House, far from the external reality, he has taken to
deleting references to radical Islamists, that fraction within Islam that would
politicize it for their own ends to power, power over other people. To gain
that authority they require legitimacy so they pluck verses opportune to
justifying their atrocities out of the Koran—while the President edits. They do
not represent the overwhelming majority of Muslim’s but they desire to be
perceived as legitimate defenders of Islam; legitimacy is power. By now it is
well known that even French President Francois Hollande cannot escape our
president’s censorious wrath for uttering the words “Islamist terrorism,” as is
the Obama administrations deletion of all declarations of allegiance to ISIS
from the Orlando 911 tapes. Furthermore, Americans of all sorts are now being
put on “kill lists” by an ISIS that, at the same time, radicalizes and exhorts
those America has taken in as its own to turn on us, murder us, and reject our
society and polity as falling short of their high standards. This leaves us
confronting an absurd pretense that though the Presidents policy may have had a
rational and eminently justifiable beginning, and is still a worthy object, of
not stirring up hostility of and to those Muslims who
are innocent bystanders, those few found embedded in their societies (when
found) with political motives, in common with progressives, opposed to
liberalism and a maleficent aim of spreading war and radicalism to all of
Islam, are killing us and threatening the same with regularity, and we are
allowed to speak of them in but euphemisms.
Also,
progressive’s refusal to precisely define the source of terror exacerbates the
challenges for policymakers; Islamist terrorist activity is increasing, the
Progressive response is denial. “In the U.S.,” according to National Security
expert James Carafano, “the number and frequency of Islamist plots has been
growing. Before Orlando, the U.S. alone has been the target of at least 85
Islamist-related terrorist plots since Sept. 11, 2001. The attack in Orlando is
the 22nd plot since 2015. To put this increase in perspective,
more than a quarter of domestic terror plots in the U.S.
There is a
sociological congruence between these circumstances and those produced in the
aftermath of President Kennedy’s assassination. In both instances, government’s
craven reticence resulted in its traitorous behavior. Criminal networks and
activity, whose origins can be traced, envelop the polity great and small and
have brought to the American consciousness the knowledge of individual
insignificance. Leviathan’s defense of life is a faltering premise; moreover,
government never will be able to protect us at every moment. Bearing in mind
its cognizance of the principal actors in criminal activity, and their
whispering persuasiveness, government has compounded its perfidy by acting as a
mostly inadvertent but nonetheless enabling agent of criminality, providing
distractions from this growing power by pursuing the criminalization of
heretofore legal, sometimes benign and what are, for the most part, innocuous
activities. Hence the law abiding are treated as criminals to deter criminal
behavior, so the formerly innocent assume the status of villain; victory over
crime is celebrated; the unfortunate are reposed in their misery; and organized
criminals celebrate freedom.
The prosecution
of the “War on Drugs,” to which there has been talk of surrender, (in part for
the sake of all those now occupying our penal institutions), is a distraction
from what has turned out to be the organized criminal’s ancillary war on
culture, leading to malefactors, from billionaires to street level, playing a
tremendous part in subverting our ethical habits and attitudes (that will never
be rebuilt, entirely), while at the same time increasing their wealth and
gaining a legitimizing presence in businesses large and small. In addition,
surrender to the legalization of drugs would mean to place ourselves in a
pincer movement, for unless the nation were to legalize every drug imaginable
there would necessarily be legal restrictions after the fact of “legalization”
that would open the door to a furtherance of illicit drug marketing, moreover,
as we have seen with marijuana the untaxed black market remains lucrative
because prices are lower. Society would be forced to bear the harms of newly
licit drugs cooked up and injected into the marketplace in addition to those of
the illicit, while organized crime profited from both aspects of the trade. In
Madison’s words (applied to New Jerseys plight, at the time of the convention),
the nation would be like “a cask tapped at both ends.” The beneficiaries are powerful
criminal actors that the “War on Drugs” does not mention.
Furthermore,
society encompasses a marketplace of individuals who not only demand to
deliberately live their lives numbed in a drug induced stupor, but rejecting
traditional values like duty, thrift, saving, or any sense of Justice—that
is, Reason allied with the just sentiments to govern the passions—after having
impoverished themselves will blame society at large for their material lack, so
pursing happiness in this context will—as in others—be replaced by a “right” to
be provided with happiness. Then use their votes to demand a further and what
can only be a deleterious enlargement of the already bloated welfare state
(second only to France). This makes them something like a Despot, free at the
expense of others. Unlike smoking or drinking, which can be done without
diminishing cognitive and social functioning, normalizing unrestricted drug use
will have a corrosive effect on individual’s and by them the population at
large. Society will be forced to continue taking responsibility for the
irresponsible who make “fun” life’s aim.
As to individuals
of wealth and influence who indulge in drug use, they do so at the expense of
society as well, but in a different way. First, they are ignored by law
enforcement for the most part and when they sometimes accidentally become
entangled in the justice system they seem to be impervious to the consequences.
This corrupts the system of justice, making it tacitly clear that there are two
separate America’s one of which is not to be bothered by the law. Law is no
longer guided by justice but obeys the new ethos of self-indulgence for those
who can afford to ignore it. Second, their example falsely legitimates a norm
that if allowed will change our society forever, requiring ever greater
involvement of government in the daily lives of its citizens. Last, we end
where we began, society will be “like a cask tapped at both ends.”
On the issue
of drug use there is little to be hopeful about. Many of the drugs that we are
conscious of were indulged in the distant past by a drastic minority; thus
aroused no great energy in opposition because the harm may not have been easily
perceived or may have been considered negligible to the greater whole. This
was long before a mass market developed for them in the western world, however.
If legalization were to occur the demand for widespread testing and more
laws (e.g., blood, urine, hair, sobriety, and monitoring, e.g., parental
performance, child welfare, respectively) to ostensibly prevent harms to the
innocent is not unimaginable. Therefore a whole new web of laws would be cast
over the citizenry to control them; the pernicious results of legalization
would be invitations galore for government to avoid criminals and seek the
safety of further invading innocent lives—to protect us, of course.
Organized
criminal activity is not going away, though it might be lessened. However,
prudence is the first virtue, and imprudent it would be to place the burden entirely
on individuals. One can, as a result, easily imagine populous sanctuary cities
and their witnesses armed against the criminal elements in the greater society;
moreover, these would be cities that, populated by humans, would, by their
human nature, produce more criminal activity. This is said not to engender
hopelessness but to dampen utopian notions of man’s perfectibility, and to
point out that organized crime is hardly cloaked in anonymity there are a huge
number of people in America who, cognizant of criminal elements, could offer
testimony but certainly will not. (A judge in Montana once made the claim that
everybody probably knows somebody from whom drugs could be procured.)
Another
exemplification of progressives’ tenuous hold on actuality was demonstrated in
Anderson Coopers recent interview with Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Under the guise of “journalism” he seemed intent on settling an old score with
Bondi. During the gay marriage “debate” it was her duty to defend Florida’s Constitution
that prohibited gay marriage, thus a matter of duty and honor. But Cooper
apparently has no notion of honor or duty or, integral to both, integrity, for
that matter; furthermore, seems to despise any lawful resistance to gay
authority and doctrine as illegitimate. So he attacked and bullied her
throughout the interview for her fidelity to the public trust (a chivalrous man
of probity, that Cooper). Bondi’s duty is to enforce the law and Constitution
of Florida. She was faithful to that duty when her office defended that state’s
Constitution and the democratic will of the voters that had crafted it, from
subversion; and she has continued to carry out that honorable duty to Florida’s
law, making it clear in the wake of the Orlando tragedy that the law protects
all, and will defend all, gays included. On her watch people will be treated
equally. Cooper does not, as we say, “get that.” Instead he follows Omar
Mateen’s marital example of overbearing abusiveness. Let us hope he goes no
further with it.
. . .
Invidious ideas and attitudes have landed us on
a bleak shore overlooked by glaringly base appetites hostile to the humane. The
President has maliciously refused to provide information that would have helped
set free hundreds of kidnapped young girls in Nigeria, instead abandoning them
to the rape and humiliations forced on them by their captors because that
country resisted being bullied into acquiescing to the LGBT agenda’s stupefying
writ—the consequences might well have shattered their society. In Haiti, Barry
and his lackeys in the Ag department would ruin Haiti’s peanut farmers by
dumping a “million pounds of surplus peanuts into Haiti at no cost…” Their
inimical “aid” could impoverish 150,000 farmers, and destroy jobs for another
500,000 persons; it happened before under Bill Clinton. [4] Under the deliberately surreptitious guise of
updating health and physical education standards Washington State has, of late,
cleverly avoided its accountability to civil society and set itself “free” to
continue abolishing ethical norms. Consent of and participation by the governed
are in the Progressive view obsolete, as are reasoned arguments and long held
habits and values—this is why progressives work through the courts. Moreover,
Edmund Burke advises us that, “The practical consequences of any political
tenet go a great way in deciding upon its value. What in the result is likely
to produce evil is politically false: that which is productive of good
politically true.” [5] To avoid the consequences of these criteria
politics will be what Progressives, free of the governed—and they would say an
outdated ethos—decides to do. For the child who stands alone and afraid they
know better what that child ought to feel and to think and to do. So too for
the child that is ogled and perhaps treated as a reluctant object of play, and
for that child’s parents, sick with fear, they know better. Since progressives
know everything, Washington State’s “Physical Education Standards” will now
require conditioning children starting in kindergarten, like it or not, to “Understand
there are many ways to express gender.” [6] We can be sure
understanding is not their purpose; children are not cognitively capable of
evaluating the concepts. Progressives are exploiting children’s intellectual
immaturity; the inevitable challenges to progressive indoctrination are to be
shunted into the shadows of ignorance—for progressives know everything. Or that
is what they want us to believe, and this is why they tremble, for what Lord
Acton called the “fierce light of science,” would reveal their deception, and
their malice. What Washington State means by “understand” is that the child
will be expected to mindlessly parrot the conditioners “teaching,” or to be
more accurate the state programming, since they are reducing the child to a
facultative mechanical creation of circumstance independent of nature. In other
words, our progressive masters require “good citizens” believe such and such
and ignore nature’s reality.
The falsity of their claim to “teach” is further demonstrable by asking a few
brief questions. Will these kindergarten children be taught that, “Human
sexuality is an objective biological binary trait: XY and XX are genetic
markers of health – not genetic markers of a disorder”? That, “No one is born
with a gender”? That, “Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female)
is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one”?
That, “No one is born with an awareness of themselves as male or female”? That
this “awareness develops over time and, like all developmental processes, may
be derailed by a child’s subjective perceptions, relationships, and adverse
experiences from infancy forward,” perhaps in that very classroom?
That, “A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best,
a sign of confused thinking”? That, “Puberty is not a disease and puberty
blocking hormones can be dangerous” since they “induce a state of disease—the
absence of puberty—and inhibit growth and fertility in a previously
biologically healthy child”? That, “According to the DSM-V, as many as 98% of
gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their
biological sex after naturally passing through puberty”? That, “Children who
use puberty blockers to impersonate the opposite sex will require cross-sex
hormones in late adolescence,” and that those same “hormones (testosterone and
estrogen) are associated with dangerous health risks including but not limited
to high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke and cancer”? That, “Rates of
suicide are twenty times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and
undergo sex reassignment surgery, even in Sweden which is among the most LGBQT
– affirming countries”? [7] Of
course not, again, the discussion is beyond their intellectual, to say nothing
of their educational development, and even if they had come fully to an age of
reason introducing their minds to objective truths is not progressives object,
science belies their propositions and this exposes the conditioners as
pestilent deceivers who have no more interest in science than education,
children than truth. Washington State’s interest is the corruption of science
and education for the sake of manipulating children. Their purpose is not to
impart knowledge but to inculcate conditioned responses in children and the
sure knowledge that, for both child and parent, punishment awaits dissent, and
they are powerless to resist. (In the progressive view parents are obsolete;
they are to be replaced by government.) For if they can invent tame humans they
can invent a culture much less inclined to question progressive governments
“good intentions and guidance” contravening reality. Except perhaps as a small,
legitimizing part of an admixture of deceit, truth has no place in their means,
and must be suppressed. Fear of Progressives hatred for children’s
non-compliance with their approved doctrines is therefore justified. Children
(and their parents) are, with a doubtful recourse, abused by “authorities” with
a therefore doubtful accountability. Ideological madness has been, and is
being, enforced on individuals by a government willing to force children to
bear hideous scars incurred by Progressive’s delusional ideology. For another
example, in politics, the wife of Maryland’s governor has decried gay marriage
opponents as “cowards,” yet their state capitol hosted a conference where a
self-described gay activist argued unopposed for sexual access to children, to
politically revise their human standing to that of unhuman in order to treat
them like Afghan boys, and the “courageous” first lady accommodated that idea
without protest. The husband of her views went on to run for President
whereupon he distinguished himself for his despicably timid behavior,
particularly towards Hillary Clinton.
It is worth mentioning that running for office, judged by the quality of the
candidates in either party for president in this cycle, requires very few
meaningful qualifications. It seems one may be an egoistic demagogue/pawn in
waiting, a frustrated “Gay John,” a gutless wonder, a political quack promising
free stuff, or an unindicted felon—too big to prosecute—who might, for the
right price, betray the country to hostile interests. In addition, for
the first time in recorded world history we have witnessed an alleged
political debate where penis size was entertained by the mostly gay would-be
“world leaders.” “The Donald,” quickly took the subject in hand and assured the
public his is up to the job, whatever that may be. (One gets the feeling that
if Hillary had been there she would have said the same thing.) The fault is
plain to see, individuals who are too dense to know when they are being
laughed at are too dense to be president. God save us from the
incompetent. Selah.
The vicious disregard for children’s well-being and the desire to find a method
to supplant nature with nurture—under cover of “good intentions,” of course—was
elucidated some years ago in the case of David Reimer. Reimer suffered a
tragically botched circumcision in infancy that cauterized his penis beyond
repair. His parents fraught with grief and anxiety over his future were enticed
by Johns Hopkins psychologist John Money, and his speculations, that the
difference between men and women was in no way natural but socially
constructed, to allow Money to remake him into a girl. They assented; Money
castrated David and began the surgical process to construct a girl. Money
claimed the “experiment” worked, claimed his speculations about gender being
socially invented independent of a permanent nature were valid, and went on to
the next child. But Money lied; David did not want to live as a girl, when he
became aware of himself he vehemently rebelled against it. Moneys
unprincipled, cruel experiment on David (and his twin brother
as a participant) proved him a vicious, deceitful fraud. Money had empty
speculations about social construction inventing gender—despite nature—that he
gambled the Reimer twins lives on to substantiate; they paid for that lost gamble,
both of them eventually suicided in despair.
Money’s aims and methods reveal the sick mind of someone comfortable with
progressive ideology. He tried to discover a method to confuse nature and
induce deviancy; in so doing he exposed his cruel utilitarian progressivism
that says some innocents must suffer heinously that others might be, however
brutally, validated. (Thus the sexes force themselves into each other’s
bathrooms; sterile same sex couplings are denominated marriage and children are
made into commodities so the “parents” can claim to be “equal,” (Hint: two
different things cannot be equal); and living children are vivisected and no
one bats an eye. This so some people will feel validated. This is like
confirming an actor in his part as a real character.)
Reimer said that Dr. Money
forced the twins to rehearse sexual acts involving "thrusting
movements", with David playing the bottom role. Reimer said that, as a child, he
had to get "down on all fours" with his brother, Brian Reimer,
"up behind his butt" with "his crotch against" his
"buttocks". Reimer said that Dr. Money forced David, in another sexual position, to have his "legs
spread"
with Brian on top. Reimer said that Dr. Money also forced the children to take
their "clothes off" and engage in "genital inspections". On
at "least one occasion", Reimer said that Dr. Money took a photograph
of the two children doing these activities. Dr. Money's rationale for these
various treatments was his belief that "childhood 'sexual rehearsal
play'" was important for a "healthy adult gender identity".
(Wikipedia, 6/30/2016)
If this is common practice at these medical facilities, if their secrets ever
be revealed, it may be that there are even more deviants at large than we
think.
. . .
Our
serenely ignorant progressives never tire of going on about the wonders of
maintaining a cultural diversity that divides and injures society, yet are not
in the least, so it appears, informed of nor appreciative of other cultures
intricacies (obvious in the case of Nigeria), as well as America’s former
culture that they in their societal hatred have largely replaced in this
country. So our ill-informed President during one of his international
jaunts thanked Japan for Karate; problem is Karate is an import. (Can Barry
say import?) The big kicks in martial arts originated on the
continent. In traditional Japanese martial arts they are proscribed. The
Japanese, perhaps not wishing to embarrass him, chose not to correct his
ignorance, so we may consider the matter closed. Nevertheless, it does seem
that people who jabber on about their interest in cultural diversity must mean
something else; else they would show a proper interest in other cultures.
Afghanistan,
every Thursday night: Screams and frantic pleadings are Hell’s concert in the
night. Throughout the darkness, children and adolescent boys, sometimes serving
in the military and police ranks, will be run down like animals by
tumescent men, sometimes serving with them. The pitiful whimpering’s and
pleas for mercy that haunt the shadows will excite but laughter from these
gruesome primitives who, seemingly sluiced up from hell’s gutters, revel in the
beatitudes of misery. In Afghanistan women are for children, boys are for fun,
and fun it is to force a boys screams, to see his bowels give way in terror and
ride him with savage energy, to grip his young body by force forcing aside
tendons and muscle, wrenching his bloody pain from anus to lips. Harry Reid and
Robert Mueller could only hope for that kind of license, to live that horrible
power and take what they want by an exhilarating force. To stride the earth
as terrible sovereigns bathed in pain, taking and raping until they are
blissfully sated with the screams and torment of children. Just like
Afghanistan, every Thursday night: for Friday is their day to “pray and
repent.”
Liberalism,
economic and political, grew in America unhindered, for the most part, by
former ideas and laws that supported class and privilege. Culture—that is, our
ideas, habits and attitudes—was produced in great part by unique American
circumstances in which men formed governments to secure the benefits of this
distinct civil society; thus we discover the purpose from which derive our
obligations to defend the advantages of society according to the law of human
nature. [8] Today
government invokes class and privilege to negate the blessings of liberty,
replaces duty with subservience, and purposes to form man for its benefit
according to relativistic subjectivism. The former was practical liberty, an
instantiation of theory; the latter an oppression that demands our customs, our
beliefs and our ethics be set aside because a powerful few demand it. Moreover,
freedom worked in the former, and produced, in Adam Smith’s words, “opulence
for all,” the better to enjoy a confident individual liberty and participation
in their society, secured by law and custom. The latter accustoms us to
servility and the principle of fear.
The liberty of our political ancestors is further contrasted with today’s
progressivism prefigured in Tocqueville’s Critique of Socialism. There is
nothing new under the sun and so it is that his description of socialism coincides
with progressivism’s sneering contempt for liberty. Ergo, they, “unceasingly
attempt to mutilate, to curtail, [and] to obstruct personal freedom…” except as
the self-ordained “wise” should prescribe it. This means that “the State must
not only act as the director of society, but must further be master of each
man, and not only master, but keeper and trainer. For fear of allowing him to
err, the State must place itself forever by his side, above him, around him,
better to guide him, to maintain him, in a word to confine him.” So is Liberty
forfeit.
This is to say nothing of its false hopes of utopian “material passions,” for
example, “that ‘work…must be not only useful, but agreeable’”; “that ‘man must
be paid, not according to his merit, but according to his need’”; and that the
object of government “is to procure unlimited wealth for all,” nor its attack
on the “principle of private property.” Call it what you will, progressivism,
socialism, communism, it is the same totalitarian tripe that has been pushed on
the west for hundreds of years by nihilists and despots (we call them
intellectuals), the same that with all the indiscriminate fervor of a bitch in
heat attempts to this day to further subvert the American order. As Tocqueville
declaimed, theirs is “simply a new system of serfdom.” [9]
. . .
Donald
Trump has been denoted a progressive in various disquisitions; this is a
conviction rooted in experience. For progressives stink of arrogance, savage
and lawless; rude and shameless, they flaunt their bellicose ruthlessness; they
take their repose in blood and rot, their friends as rapists and maquereaus,
haters and terrorists; decay is their incense, political whores and high traitors
their table mates as they gather like scavengers for a feast of pain at our
lost hope. They mount the nation like a boy to be bloodied and scream “recant,
recant of your loves and your beliefs; recant of just sentiments, beneficence
and mercy, duty and justice, liberty and equality; put good behind you” they
querulously clamor, and “join our fellowship of self-pleasers.” They beseech
their fliting cave gods that sophists will rise up and twist “justice” to their
favor, so will Freedoms voice be choked off; whereupon, pressed on each side by
the dooms of tyranny and slavery, liberty and justice will squeak out their
inferior petitions to a deaf universe.
Trump has said he wants to make America great again. But in what for Trump is
a perspicuous moment, he denotes his lack of understanding. America never
ceased to be great, the miracle of the country escapes him, the sublime baffles
him, and he is revealed confused, dull and ignorant, a political oaf who would
overcome his clumsiness with ungoverned authority. This common species of iron
fisted lout that would perhaps awaken anew an even grimmer despotism whereby to
bring us into a cringing conformity with progressive ideas of lawlessness, is
an unmasked dummy. The Donald does not “get it,” America requires a competent
executive not an obtuse thug.
Trump is a zero-sum boor. Immigration makes the point. The bouffant
Donald has said he will cure the ills of illegal immigration by building a wall
between the U.S. and Mexico, and, moreover, making Mexico pay for it. That is
not practicable, and it would be an unwarranted affront to their national
dignity and honor, bringing to ruin comity’s intercourse. Furthermore, he is
ignoring the hard work that is to be done. Incentives drive immigration, illegal
and otherwise. If we want to remove them we have to create laws that prohibit
companies importing foreign workers to avoid accountability to the
market, enforce existing laws that prohibit hiring undocumented employees,
prosecute those who do, and reform our out of control welfare system. This
would remove unwarranted benefits for employers and potential employees, and
for those in this country who for one reason or other find the thought of work
not to their tastes. The latter would then have reason to take the jobs they
now seem to find unpalatable. Furthermore, as to drugs being imported through
Mexico, building a wall will not remove the incentives for American organized
crime to sell those drugs to Americans. Drugs will continue to move north despite
any wall, or the horrendous loss of life the Mexican civilian population has
suffered during that country’s war on drug traffickers, (between 2007 and 2014
there were 164,000 homicides). America does not need a “Trump Wall,” nor is it
wise or just to pick a fight with a neighbor who means us no harm and is
suffering terribly for its efforts to curb drug traffickers. We need rather
find the will to reform welfare and enforce our laws, and, moreover, when we
discover laws that have fallen into disuse remove them or purpose to enforce
them. Progressives are in the first rank of the contemptable and the
odious; for that eternal curse of the progressive mind claims title to a
faultless rationality that seems to inevitably end in suffering for those it
presumes to help. Our corrupted attitudes towards law enforcement and the
welfare system are perfect examples.
Immigration nevertheless is a subject that ought to be studied for answers to
questions such as, are we proceeding at a pace that will lead to an orderly
assimilation of immigrants that preserves the coherence of our society? In
other words, produces human beings who identify America as worthy to be
defended and nurtured as their own. And if we infer from the number of
unassimilated a valid rationale for slowing the pace what is our proper course?
To answer that question we need ask ourselves will it be good for us to keep
squeezing people into a finite amount of space. At last report, the United
States had 323.7 million residents, up from 180 million in 1960 (to add
perspective Russia’s current population is 144.2 million); according to the Pew
Research Center we can expect an increase to 438 million by 2050, 82% of which
will be driven by immigration; and the global population of over 7 billion is
predicted to be 9.7 billion by 2050, so there will be unremitting pressure on
our borders to admit more. Further, populations are ageing so there are more
demands on government services and fewer workers supporting them. Therefore we
must consider these two aspects of our condition, a population that may rise
indefinitely and the demographic imbalance between younger workers and
society’s dependents.
To
contemplate the thought of an ever expanding population is to face the immanent
effects. Yet to dare question immigration policy is to invite the obloquy
of progressives who cast themselves as irreproachable vessels full up of good
will for immigrants and the country. They will cast immigration as an
untouchable right, a license for some without recognizing any duty to others,
and those who would manage it as backward and uncompassionate. But their
propositions will not bear scrutiny. To aver immigration, (or its correlate
travel), a natural right, absolutely true is to make a false proposition.
Freedom exists objectively. It is absolutely true that man ought to be free.
Yet man is not perfectible hence limits drawn from experience must guide us,
otherwise liberty will be confounded with chaos. One need only imagine a
country full up to see that a claim of an inerrant “right” to immigrate is
absurd. Theory’s instantiation necessitates prudent judgement.
The question of sheer numbers can be answered by observation. Already we have
conflicts over forestry, development, and water policy, between humans, and
animals, and habitat; thus a reasonable conservative goal of passing on natures
inheritance becomes more and more difficult to realize. Moreover, in a
society of strangers “do it ourselves” citizen associations have been replaced
by entreaties for government, and sometimes government conniving, furthering
its control, to do it for us; as our population grows the principle of
participation weakens, so do we. People, even institutions, can get lost in a
crowd, even more so when well-heeled interests can capture decision makers with
various harmful currencies.
The question of proportion between those paying in and those drawing on the
public account is more nuanced. It might seem to be a simple matter of
addition. Add more workers. But what kind of workers do we add, and are we
ready to do this indefinitely? And in doing this are we ignoring pertinent
circumstances, such as the poor management that put us in this position? We
have gotten ourselves in a fix, we may need younger workers paying taxes to support
our way of life. We may need to import them. And this cycle may be repeated
until this country is irrevocably full up and more. We may want to take a hard
look at our future and decide if it is the one we want. Therefore this subject
requires the skill of honorable statesmen who put aside personal and private
interests and undistracted make their object the public good.
In contrast, Trump has tendentiously said globalization detracts from our
economy; Sanders and Clinton seem to agree. Any demagogue would. To reduce
economic problems to one thing, then to promise to “change” that one thing is
an efficacious but nonetheless specious ploy to garner votes. As Robert
Samuelson writes, “the American economy is driven mainly by domestic factors.”
For instance, even if we had no global involvement, “The 2008-09 financial
crisis [sic] would still have occurred, because it was caused mainly by
domestic forces – a housing bubble fostered by lax credit standards and
inaccurate or fraudulent loan applications.” Trump’s tariffs would mean,
“Export related employment would suffer.” [10] That’s
it. Samuelson continues,
Moreover, Trump wrongly blames U.S. trade deficits on trade agreements, which (he alleges) were negotiated by inept trade officials. The main cause, as I've explained before, is the dollar's role as the main form of international money, which is used to finance trade and international investment. This boosts the worldwide demand for dollars, raising the exchange rate and making U.S. manufactured goods and farm products less competitive on global markets.
The truth, it turns out, is complicated, Donald and Hillary not so much. They just want to get elected. (Of course, in order to stay out of jail, Bill is rooting for both of them.)
The upshot is politicians and the citizenry are avoiding tough issues because
they raise tough questions that can lead to tough answers. Federal deficits,
the national debt, and state and federal unfunded debt are examples that will
require not only competency in arithmetic but an understanding of who we were,
who we are, who we want to be and, probably most important, what we, as a
people (if we are a people), will accept to achieve our ends.
We were a nation that purposefully limited federal government power, to guard
the liberty of states and individuals, and enumerated powers defining its
duties, hence government was to be one of strength within its sphere; of
associations that further guarded liberty and engendered a common life and
communities; and of a unifying, objective ethical understanding that guarded
the integrity of our principles; and, moreover, without which those principles
could govern a society of devils.
We are now a people, constantly scrutinized and prodded by the federal power,
indeed, we often insist on it, thus its power grows and is for that reason a
frequent corrosive to individual liberty and the associational and institutional
integrity of the society; and our ethics have been reduced to relativism,
disfiguring our principles. “There is,” writes Lewis, “nothing left of which we
can say to them, ‘Mind your own business.’ Our whole lives are their business.”
Who we want to be must be qualified by what we will accept and, moreover, our
ability to frustrate the designs of those who would yoke us to their interests.
The latter can be politically influenced by annulling the 17th amendment
thereby putting our Senators under the scrutiny of those who are most familiar
with their private character. Tocqueville noted the arrangement produced men of
note in the Senate. Furthermore, though no structural devise will entirely stop
the determined wrongdoer, ameliorating careerist motives can be accomplished,
to a fair degree, by creating term limits.
The former is the most difficult and requires a comparison. The law of right
and wrong, common to us all, has been replaced with something arbitrarily made
to suit our amoral masters. This is what C.S. Lewis addressed in his essay The
Poison of Subjectivism, “The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective
moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike. Subjectivism about values is
eternally incompatible with democracy. We and our rulers are of one kind so
long as we are subject to one law. But if there is no Law of Nature, the ethos
of any society is the creation of its rulers, educators and conditioners; and
every creator stands above and outside his own creation.” Today’s elite have
led us away from the objective and inculcated their arbitrary notions of right
and wrong, true and false. As we have seen in the ongoing culture wars against
depravity they are not subject to traditional values, but, ruled by their
appetites, have a restive desire to impose their ever “evolving” whims on the
greater society. Today’s elite reject the Christian tradition of natural
law for it “holds citizens and statesmen alike to common standards of morality
and thus promotes limited government.” [11] Hence
we are part of a historical cycle for again we are confronted with the
political question of “whether societies of men are really capable or not of
establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are
forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and
force.” –Alexander Hamilton
. . .
Now,
lest we suffer further for lack of circumspection, a few more words about sloppy
Hillary are in order. She has given the slip to justice once again thanks to
Jim Comey who despite her willful actions and all her lies had her back. Now
having shed herself of that bothersome “accountability to law” and the puny
duties of Secretary of State, that ill befitted her giant ego, she is in the
hunt for an office that will once and for all accommodate that ego. Sloppy
Hillary wants to be president but her scofflaw nature makes her desire seem
incredible. From the lowest to the highest she (and Bill) has committed
unpunished crimes. Her dereliction of duty in disappearing during the Benghazi
crises and casual mishandling of national security matters being paramount but
not exceptional (kind of like Bill losing the nuclear codes), for keeping
company with the Clinton’s not only puts the nation at risk but our furniture
as well. They were both tracked down to retrieve furniture that they had
absconded with from the White House the last time they left. They can be
likened to sneak thieves with a thin sheen of status.
Moreover, she does not seem to fit the mold of great women leaders. When
pondering such women it is hard to imagine her in their company. For their
company is distinguished by their honorable devotion. Hillary is not noted for her
honor or any particular fondness for America, but her devotion to her career.
It is reasonable to wonder if, because she lost interest in her job as
Secretary of State, she would not lose interest in the work of the presidency
when her enamored first blush fades away at the effort of the job. She is after
all quite old now. (Given her political sensibilities, and diminished mental
state, it would not do to have her wandering about over hill and dale yammering
her nonsense about some women not being real women. It would be much better if
Jean Kirkpatrick were running, then we would have someone to vote for.)
. . .
Afghan
culture is primitive; the violent rape of children is ordinary. Hatreds are
tended and endure even when their beginnings are lost to time. It is not
unusual for villages to have no reason to hate the next village over, they just
do. Moreover, if the customary pedophilia/pederasty is interfered with on
behalf of a screaming boy their malice will find you, so it is not. It is a
place where the objective values of the “Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic,
Christian, and Oriental do not reside,” and may be a warning for the west that
is leaving such understandings behind.
Our institutions retain their form but the substance is changing, for the ideas
that shaped the individuals that make them up have changed. For that reason no
institution, even the military, is exempt. In Afghanistan we have seen, without
blinking, a commander by force of orders send his men to their death and
destruction despite their outright pleas for their lives and, furthermore,
expostulations that included viable options that would have led to victory, and
under the harrowing burden of living with the results of perversion (e.g.,
children screaming in public pain, and parents pitifully voicing their anguish)
we have seen two men torn between their orders and the plight of the helpless
give in to their natural sentiments and defend a helpless child and his mother,
who was beaten for talking to the authorities (appropriate behavior in a
culture that treats women worse than animals). They both attacked the child’s
rapist. But afterwards the enlisted sergeant was “involuntarily discharged”
from service (he has since been reinstated). The commanding General tried to
strip him of his honor calling him a traitor. The officer, presumably the
leader, was spared that obloquy, but relieved of his command quit the Army. So
who is in charge? Are enlisted men now more responsible than officers? And what
are our principles? Reasons for going to Afghanistan were justly punitive. We
now seem intent on bolstering a culture straight out of hell. Our culture has
changed.
Health care is another example of cultural degeneration. What was part of
mostly free enterprise is now collared by regulations that have subsumed it
into a government that is happy to portray itself as the great provider and
guardian of a right to happiness. (Any day now we can expect a right to be six
feet tall.) But it is cumbersome, expensive, and does not give good results.
A market oriented approach would set prices for insurance and care, but would
not be well received by a middle class whose retirements are supplemented with
programs such as Medicare, so an ideal model may not be achievable but if it
were this is what it might look like in part.
First insurance must be defined: it is indemnity against the unforeseen and the
catastrophic. Starting from that proposition we see that policies include such
things as coverage for the costs of living, pre-paid conveniences as well as
insurance.
The market can be more free and at the same time be free of some costly
incentives. Tax breaks that cost taxpayer money need to go away. If employers
(including government) want to help provide for their employees health care
they could supplement their employees with a stipend for that purpose. They
would benefit by eliminating the costly complications of sorting out various
policies. This would make the market an individual market. If individuals
really want to pay more for everyday expenses let them, it is their money. If
on the other hand they would like to save money by reducing those benefits and
shopping around government could aid them by, in the latter case, urging
insurance companies to make clear statements of cost and benefits (think
vehicle MSRP stickers) and to offer coverages directed strictly at the
unforeseen and catastrophic.
This would however work only to a point. A particular insurance coverage for
those at the top of the economic range will cost the same as at the lower end.
Furthermore, occupational opportunities have changed. Jobs once held for pocket
money are now employing people trying to pay their bills. (This necessitates a
caveat. Before the wailing and hand wringing commences we ought to remind
ourselves that folks of modest means who do not indulge profligacy are still
buying modest homes and in general carrying on with very gratifying lives.)
Hence there may be a point at which participation is, at least partly, beyond
their means and a legitimate place for some assistance.
Free markets or capitalism works best in determining market prices. However
there is a difference between what an individual will pay and an insurance
company. The private individual may shop around, but when insurance companies
enter in providers set their prices according to what those companies will pay,
e.g., if one is shopping for orthotics, for instance, prices will vary
according to what insurance will pay. One may spend perhaps as much as
$400.00. If on the other hand one contracts with someone who eschews red tape
and supports simple transactions, the price can be as low as $125.00.
Consequently, health care savings accounts ought to have a place in health care
policy and insurance should be portable, independent of providers to allow
shopping, somehow incentivized, and furthering independence.
Health care is a morass that can nevertheless be improved if we approach it
with the understanding that it will never be ideal, and so not make perfect an
enemy of good. If we employ market forces to keep prices down, dispense with
pernicious government giveaways, disallow middle men, allow individual liberty
to act or not to act and remember that people who take care of themselves are
always going to be the happiest we may yet approach freedom.
. . .
We
are approaching an election in this country that will set the tone for our
future. Both candidates are, to say the least, extremely undesirable. Trump is
a needy man, who cannot seem to get enough attention. He also has the character
deficiency of someone who thinks more of himself than he should. He thinks he
is funny, he is not. He believes he can think on his feet. Not so. In addition
his behavior seems to be deteriorating, what was formerly obnoxious and profane
has breached any social, moral, and political restraint. He now takes his
repose in maliciously goofy, attacking the innocent and defenseless. He is the
clown who calls on what can be a hostile foreign power to subvert American
elections, and, moreover, he and some of his advisors seem ready to make
themselves vassals of that power for remunerative considerations, public whores
ready to befoul the office first graced and given stability by the father of
our country.
Hillary Clinton’s character is of the same cut and can be discerned by the
company she keeps. Bill Clinton is the epitome of degenerate (except for
Hillary). After the 1992 election this was noted as far away as Europe, where
the London Spectator “saw the election result as representing a moral and cultural
sea change in the United States” [12] in
which Americans had foregone virtue. Bill, good progressive that he is, is
taking liberalism that inherently moves away from restraint as license to get
away with anything, so far he has. (Unfortunately that tendency to move away
from ethical constraints on individual behavior does not give liberalism devoid
of virtue anything to aim at.) Hillary is his enabler. She stands by her man
because without him people would have questioned why she was there at all; even
now without him she is weaker. Bill is happy to go along, without her he would
have to explain all those late nights with the boys. It is a partnership
disguised as marriage, two undercover gay agents of progressivism who know just
what is best for us.
One could go on. There is no shortage of corrupt and inept in the political
realm. The Bush family, for instance, has provided fodder for a media intent on
selling fabulous stories. Thus we are treated to the tale of a political
dynasty. That sounds dramatic, but is not. It is rather the story of fortuitous
happenstance (for the Bush’s) where Bush the feckless ascended to the
presidency, produced a shrub, then followed by a sellout that fell in love with
Common Core, a delightful way to dance around the separation of powers and
shackle children to the federal government and its schemes of societal
dominance; moreover, some anonymous businessmen who wanted to profit from our
tax dollars. Good old Jeb, for a pat on the back and a “that a boy” was willing
to serve the public interest—well, somebody’s interest.
He and his fellow presidential aspirants are examples of what we do not want in
our candidates. They are posers. Except for Trump, they tried to seem
presidential, to pass themselves off as serious policy experts, or wonks if you
will. But they were not. They are men who protect interests that are favorable
to their “careers,” the homosexual interest and influence being foremost in
their minds. That is what they do, the purpose they serve.
As the recent disaffection of republicans from the Republican Party has
demonstrated, the difference between progressives and republicans is not as
great as one might think. For the wishy-washy, Hillary will do. Conservatives
have left the party because they think liberalism is a good idea and worth
defending. The fundamental political philosophy of America that has veered off
into a collective freedom is only too happy to dictate the terms of our
happiness. It is now outright totalitarianism.
Ah, to have a dream. During the reign of George II, after his
filling out the paperwork to have me assassinated it was an affectionate
fantasy to imagine him on a boat bound for where ever. The idea being that if
he did not like this country he could find a country he liked and go there.
That was thought logical. Sometimes this included Dick Chaney, sometimes
a host of others. The boat necessarily got bigger.
China it turns out has an interesting way of avoiding the costs of
incarceration that employs a similar idea. They load up their criminals in a
big boat and launch them for Africa, someplace remote, quiet and probably with
lots of bugs and other nasty critters. This works for them, the bad guys do not
come back, ever. We might want to avail ourselves of this method, we might even
contract with them, make it a joint venture. Here’s to comity.
I
HAVE THE HONOR TO BE,
[5] Francis Canavan, Burke on Prescription of Government, The Review
of Politics, Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 454-474, Cambridge University Press for the
University of Notre Dame du lac on behalf of Review of Politics. Jstor.org
